


Fading Away

by TheGuardianAngel



Series: you always take it further than I ever can [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia, Childhood eating disorders, Eating Disorders, Gen, Mentions of Shmi Skywalker, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Purging, anorexia binge-purge subtype, mentions of Qui-Gon Jinn - Freeform, mentions of Watto, obvious trigger warning for eating disorders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 08:41:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11551599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGuardianAngel/pseuds/TheGuardianAngel
Summary: He knows very well that he can take the reins back. If he doesn’t belong to Watto, and he at least acts like he doesn’t belong to the Jedi, then maybe he can trick himself into thinking he has at least a little bit of control over his life.





	Fading Away

**Author's Note:**

> Obvious trigger warning for eating disorders. I have EDNOS and this is kind of therapeutic to write. 
> 
> It starts a little after Qui-Gon's funeral.
> 
> This is my first Star Wars fanfic. Wookiepedia is my best friend. Please don't crucify me if I didn't get something right - I worked very hard on this and tried my best to make sure everything was correct and in character.

The first full meal that Anakin has at the Temple is an improvised bowl of porridge that Obi-Wan made on a whim. The two of them sit across from each other at the table, neither speaking nor looking up at the other. Obi-Wan has his own bowl of porridge also, but simply swirls his spoon around within the cooked out, scraping some onto the spoon and then letting it fall back into his bowl.

Anakin takes small bites at first. His stomach growls as he takes in the sweet aroma and looks down at the bowl. It’s completely full. And he doesn’t have to share it – not with Obi-Wan, not with his mother, not with anyone. And part of him doesn’t particularly like that.

He wonders to himself if it’s greedy to take pleasure in not having to share the food. He was told earlier that he wouldn’t have to share with _anyone_ at any time, unless he really wanted to. _It isn’t necessary_ , Obi-Wan told him in a low voice. _Kind, but unnecessary_. There’s plenty to go around in the commissary and in the kitchen.  
Anakin wants to believe this; he really does. But he remembers how his mother said to him on days that she went without that they had enough. He has no ill thought of this; she was, as Obi-Wan said, being kind by sharing – or rather giving away – her food. It was a little white lie that he almost wishes he could hear again.

The bowl of porridge in front of Anakin is empty, completely, by the time Obi-Wan takes his own fifth bite of his. Anakin isn’t used to this volume of food. He isn’t used to having that much available. It’s almost as soon as he finishes his last bite that he regrets it.

He didn’t need this whole bowl, he realizes. It could have been shared with Obi-Wan, who seems to have lost his appetite by now. At least three-fourths of it could have been given to someone else who isn’t as fortunate.

No longer hungry, Anakin averts eye contact with Obi-Wan and takes the bowl to the kitchen sink. He scrubs it until every last piece of leftover porridge is gone, not bothering to waste any water to wash it out. His fingers brush over every last inch of the bowl until he suddenly realizes how tightly his fingers are clenched; the tips are beginning to completely go numb.

Obi-Wan says nothing about this and throws the rest of his porridge into the rubbish bin, then places his bowl in the sink with a remark about how he’ll wash his own bowl later. He leaves the room. Briefly, Anakin considers placing the rest of Obi-Wan’s porridge back into the bowl and saving it for later, but the soggy oats sink immediately to the bottom of the rubbish bin.

The idea doesn’t leave his mind. Anakin scrubs every last inch of Obi-Wan’s bowl so that his grieving master doesn’t have to. He doesn’t stop to ask himself if it’s necessary; _of course_ it’s necessary – he’s always had to clean up after adults, barring his mother and the other slaves. If he didn’t, the punishment could mean anything from no water for the rest of the day to taking a switch to the backside, his hands, or his shoulders.

Of course, Watto never hit him hard enough to injure him long term, but the threats were enough.

Anakin keeps his head down low and stands against the wall, his mind racing as he contemplates digging through the rubbish for the discarded porridge. He’s done it before, at least back in Mos Espa. He knows his mother has done it before when she was young. His stomach hurts already, but he could never know how long he would go in between meals, and with Obi-Wan like _this_ –

Well, he doesn’t know. That man is in charge. Obi-Wan is his master now and Anakin knows that what he says goes. And that includes meals. Anakin remembers what Qui-Gon said – _You’re free_. If that’s true, Anakin wonders why he still has to call Obi-Wan his master. So he doesn’t ask questions about the next meal. He doesn’t ask if he is allowed to eat; he just listens to for any sound that would signal that Obi-Wan’s coming back into the kitchen.

And when he doesn’t hear it, Anakin turns to the cupboards and contemplates briefly taking something and hiding it. His mother had done it many times when he was young… and Anakin wonders if it’s a risk worth taking. Maybe, maybe so.

 _You don’t need it_ , he tells himself. _You’ve eaten and you’re full and fine. It’s rude to do that._

Anakin wraps one hand around the bony wrist of his other hand and squeezes it tightly while sinking his broken fingernails into his light skin. He does this until he feels the urge to scour the rubbish leave him, and then turns the other way, still standing in the kitchen.

* * *

 The next meal is some sort of meat and vegetable combination that Obi-Wan throws together. The man’s blue eyes are darkly ringed, as if he hadn’t slept at all in months; he looks ten years older with his hair messed up and his eyelids drooping.

Anakin has hardly moved from the kitchen, simply sitting next to one of the counters, entertaining himself with his own thoughts.

The two of them sit down across from each other at the table. Once again, Anakin gets the urge to clear his plate; the other part of him tells him to save it for later because the Jedi could be lying – maybe they don’t have regular meals and just don’t want to scare him. Maybe they revoke meals as punishment; that’s what Watto did, after all.

The Healer he saw earlier told both him and Obi-Wan that Anakin needs to gain weight. When he was measured, he weighed in at exactly fifty-six pounds and is approximately four-foot six inches. And, they told them both, in order to gain that weight, he needs to eat around two-thousand five hundred calories a day, and gradually decrease it to approximately two-thousand calories as he comes closer to sixty-five pounds.

Anakin knows nothing about calories. He can hardly read Basic at this point, and the first information he can find on _nutrition_ (which, of course, has always been the least of his worries) is a Basic datapad.

He makes of the datapad what he can, eventually, and wonders how many of those _calories_ are in the meat and vegetables. The calories make someone gain weight; the lack of calories make them lose weight. Anakin isn’t sure how he feels about that. He isn’t sure what Obi-Wan feels either, because his master once again, throws away his food after a few bites.

Anakin inches to raid the rubbish bin, _again_ , but knows he shouldn’t. He can’t. Not in front of Obi-Wan at least.  
He scrubs their plates, even after Obi-Wan says not to worry about it. Eventually, Obi-Wan joins him, even after Anakin says that he can do it himself. The two exchange idle conversation that Obi-Wan hardly contributes to.

Anakin is silent for a long time afterwards.

* * *

 His classes start up two days later. There’s so many of them that he writes everything down on a piece of flimsi in order to remember it. He carries a datapad in the beaten up bag he brought from Tatooine, even after Obi-Wan said he didn’t need to; that there were other bags he could use that weren’t falling apart.

Obi-Wan did not eat breakfast that morning. Anakin’s stomach lurches as he wonders if he’ll eat today; Obi-Wan left their quarters that morning, even before Anakin woke up. He left a note apologizing for leaving so early, saying that he had _business_ and saying he would meet Anakin in the commissary for lunch later that day. Nowhere in Obi-Wan’s note did it say that he was free to eat something before his classes.

And so Anakin doesn’t eat breakfast either, and instead downs a cup of tea.

Anakin keeps his head down. He pulls on his braid to give himself something to do with his hands and avoids eye contact that might give away his position. Truthfully, Anakin likes interacting with other children his age. He had friends on Tatooine – though they were other slave children who knew exactly what everyone else was going through. Because, of course, they were _slaves_.

But now, the hallways of the Temple are filled with other Jedi of all different species. Younglings are led down the hallway by a Crechemaster; while other padawans make their way to different classrooms with their own bags and supplies, idly chatting with their fellow padawans.

Anakin pretends not to notice when a few look up at him. He keeps his gaze lifted just enough to see where he’s going in an attempt to read the numbers on the doorways and doesn’t look much farther than that.

When the instructors aren’t looking, the padawans and younglings around his age shoot him glares. Anakin knows he doesn’t belong here. He may possess the Force, but he _knows_ he shouldn’t be around other children and pre-teens who have so much more experience than him.

When everyone leaves for lunch, a humanoid padawan, probably around twelve or thirteen standard smacks right into Anakin by his shoulder. Anakin stumbles, holding his datapad with his crossed arms across his chest.

“Watch where you’re going, _slave_!” the boy hisses, and the four other padawans with him laugh as they walk away.

A sinking feeling hits Anakin in the stomach. How could they have known he was a slave? He hasn’t even told anyone in his classes his name, much less where he’s from and why he’s even here!

He feels sick to his stomach. So that’s it – he really _is_ nothing but a dirty slave to them.

Anakin waits around in the commissary for Obi-Wan for twenty minutes, wondering if it would be worth it at all to tell Obi-Wan about the padawan who smashed into him and called him a slave. Or about the other padawans who shot him glares, or the younglings who asked him if he was stupid because he couldn’t read Basic easily.

No. Obi-Wan has enough to deal with.

Before Anakin knows it, it’s been an hour. He has to go to his next class and Obi-Wan is nowhere to be seen. His stomach growls but he’s too upset to even think about putting anything in there.

* * *

 Obi-Wan brings soup and sandwiches from the commissary for supper that night, apologizing again for missing both breakfast and lunch.

“It’s okay.” Anakin tells him quietly, trying to smile kindly. “I understand that you’re busy, Master.”

Nodding slowly, Obi-Wan pulls the top off of his soup and stares at it for a moment before bringing his gaze back up to Anakin.

“Did you enjoy your classes today?”

Anakin nods immediately, lying through his teeth.  
“They were wizard.” he informs the man. “I like arithmetic a lot.”

Neither of them speak for a moment as Anakin takes a small bite from his sandwich and Obi-Wan scoops a bit of broth onto his spoon. The tension almost seems so thick that one could cut it with a knife. Anakin knows Obi-Wan can sense that he’s lying, but that man doesn’t seem to be calling him out on it. He himself can sense Obi-Wan’s rising stress levels.

When Obi-Wan isn’t looking, Anakin picks up the package that the sandwiches came in and reads the nutrition label the absolute best he can. One serving is half of the sandwich and is one-hundred and fifty calories; two servings lie in each package.

Anakin’s mathematics level isn’t exactly up to par. Arithmetic isn’t, despite what he told Obi-Wan, something he cares for or even likes. Slaves aren’t exactly schooled on mathematics, except for his mother who kept a log on Watto’s monetary expenses.

He does his best to add one hundred and fifty and another one hundred and fifty in his head but the numbers simply seem to jumble up. Deciding to deal with it later, Anakin wonders if that makes a significant dent in two-thousand and five hundred calories.

There’s something about that that makes him want to save the other half of the sandwich for later. And then all of the soup. Obi-Wan hasn’t even touched his sandwich and has only taken a few bites of the soup. His lips form a frown that hasn’t changed since Qui-Gon’s funeral.

“Stop when you are full, Anakin.” Obi-Wan says suddenly, looking up from his spoon. “You don’t have to eat it all if you aren’t hungry. Don’t eat simply because it is there.”

And so Anakin doesn’t take another bite. The sandwich container gets sealed back up and he doesn’t even open up the soup container. He’s still a little hungry, but Obi-Wan told him to stop so he would. After all, Obi-Wan isn’t eating very much. So Anakin wouldn’t either.

Obi-Wan places his sandwich into the icebox along with the remainder of his soup – and Anakin does the same. Afterwards, Obi-Wan sighs and tries to meditate the best he can with what Anakin assumes to be a full mind and an empty stomach.

Meditation is okay until it comes to the sitting-still part. Or really any of it. _In theory_ , meditation is okay – in practice… it’s a bit different.

Anakin tries to meditate with Obi-Wan for however long they sit there. It may be five minutes, it may be five hours. He isn’t sure. Every bit of sitting still feels like five hours at a time.

Obi-Wan bids him a goodnight at approximately nine o’clock, and both of them head to bed.

Now, Anakin’s stomach is growling again. The only thing he’s eaten all day is half of a sandwich, which is only a little less than what he and his mother ate for a morning meal on Tatooine.  
The hallway is dark. Quietly, Anakin leaves his room and makes his way down the hall, heart hammering against his ribcage. He pulls on his braid in an attempt to force himself to focus on something else.

The icebox still has half of his sandwich and the entirety of his soup. His hands tremble as he hastily pulls the other half out and shoves it in his mouth. Shaking, he turns to check and make sure Obi-Wan hasn’t heard him, then grabs the cup of soup and a spoon.

Anakin drinks all of the broth and eats the noodles in under two minutes. His mind runs a mile a minute as he checks over and over to see if Obi-Wan has heard him. His master had told him to stop – there’s no way that he would be happy over this. There’s just no way.

And by the time the cup of soup and the sandwich package are empty, Anakin feels shame making its way into his chest. His heart sinks as he feels a pang of anxiety; Obi-Wan had never told him he could eat the rest of his food. What was he going to say in the morning when he realized Anakin’s leftovers were gone?

His stomach hurts now, from how quickly he ate the remaining food. But he was so hungry. But, the other part of his head says, he feels greedy. He didn’t _need_ the rest of it. He could have saved it for later – when he may have needed it more.

Anakin goes back to bed with shame, wanting to throw it all back up and save it for later.

* * *

 The next morning, Obi-Wan sleeps in. Anakin pulls out a pot and a tub of porridge oats in order to prepare breakfast for his master. He reads the back of the tub in the best way that he can. The serving size is “half of a cup” – Anakin finds the measuring cups quickly and places “half of a cup” of oats into a pot, along with some water to mix it with.

The serving size is “half of a cup” and the calories for the serving size are one hundred and fifty – the same as half of the sandwich that still weighs heavily on his mind. Anakin wonders how much was in the soup; the cups didn’t have labels on them – only the sandwiches.

“You didn’t have to make breakfast, Padawan.” Obi-Wan says when he finally wakes up. He spoons a small amount of porridge into a bowl and places it on the table in his usual spot. “You should eat some too, before your classes.”

Both of them drink a cup of tea each, until Obi-Wan makes a second, and then a third cup.

Anakin’s classes are a nightmare. He keeps his head down again and speaks to no one. The taunts come from different padawans and younglings again. The first time he tells one of the older padawans to sod off and leave him alone, the entire class stares at him and the instructor – a female whose name he’s forgotten – tells him to keep his voice down and to _not_ speak to anyone in that tone of voice.

That’s what sets him off first. The Jedi have rules, Anakin understands that, but he doesn’t understand why he can’t say what’s on his mind if he’s supposedly free. Part of him supposes that maybe it has to do with the fact that he calls everyone “master”, or maybe he’s just hallucinating this entire thing and he really still  _is_ a slave.  
Or maybe it’s the whole emotionless thing. He’s not allowed to be angry because anger is an emotion. He’s not allowed to raise his voice at the other padawans who make fun of him because it shows anger instead of completely and utter calmness – and those are their own.

The other padawans and younglings have been here for their entire lives. Anakin has been here for a week. Already, the Jedi have given him “freedom” and then taken it away. He keeps his gaze down and says absolutely nothing, just like the slave they think he is.

Lunch comes, but Obi-Wan does not, and Anakin doesn’t eat. His stomach hurts too much for food. He sits by himself in the corner of the commissary with no lunch and does his best to study the Basic texts on his datapad.

There’s a calculator that Anakin inputs the calorie counts from his sandwich the night before – two servings of one hundred and fifty calories. It comes out to three hundred. Three hundred calories out of two-thousand five hundred. It still feels like a lot. How is he supposed to choke down two-thousand five hundred calories worth of food?

His stomach would grow if he did, Anakin thinks. He wouldn’t be able to run around as much. He won’t be able to be a Jedi if he can’t run around as much. Accepting physics’ existence and understanding them are two different things – but what Anakin knows is that if he’s ten pounds heavier, which the Healers want him to be, he’s going to be bigger. He isn’t going to be able to run around as much because bigger things travel at a slower and heavier speed.

He leans back in his chair and feels the same pressure against his back that he feels when he sits against anything hard. His spine sticks out; it always has. The Healer said it would probably go away when he gained weight, but there’s something about that he doesn’t like at all.

When Anakin is done with his classes for the day, he meets with Obi-Wan in the hallway, and that’s when Anakin learns that he’s supposed to go to the Halls of Healing and be weighed by the Healers.

He thinks about how he’s eaten since the last time they weighed him; there’s the soup and sandwich, the porridge, the meat and veg – it feels like too much. His stomach feels weighed down just thinking about it.

And the scale supports this. The scale tells him that he is fifty eight pounds. The Healer, who’s name Anakin doesn’t remember, tells him that some of this may be water weight and weight from anything he’s eaten today, not actual fat or muscle.

Anakin simply nods along.

When they return back to their quarters, Anakin looks in the mirror in the ‘fresher. His ribs stick out through his skin and arms look like sticks with a bit of skin cushioning them, but his stomach looks bloated.

It makes him feel greedy. Disgusting. _Dirty_.

* * *

 Anakin remembers, vaguely, the pleasure-slaves at Gardulla the Hutt’s palace. He was young when they left – _very_ young – but Anakin remembers them. They were mostly female with a few males, most twi’lek with some human and some togruta. And he remembers the skimpy outfits that the older, male child slaves would gawk at; every bone in those pleasure-slaves jutted out at every angle. Most of them, anyway – some were normal sized for a female slave, of good child-bearing weight.

But Anakin remembers seeing the way those pleasure-slaves were when rations were given out. When they were given the food, some would not eat. Instead, they gave their rations to the children or to another slave. Some would eat extremely fast, almost painfully so, and immediately, they would purge.

He was told once by his mother that when they got that thin, they didn’t seem to be as desirable to Gardulla or any of the male slaves or workers. They were skin and bones with no figure.

The slaves probably spent their whole lives being controlled and owned – this was how, Anakin supposed, they took that control back into their own hands.

Memories of his mother come back. Anakin was around five, maybe six years old, the day Watto dismissed him for the evening and he came back to their dwelling to find his mother gone. Anakin’s blood froze in his veins as he hoped – oh, he _hoped_ – that she was just out and had not been sold on without his knowledge. He remembers how he held back his tears as the worst thoughts came back to him.

The twin suns had begun to set when Shmi burst into the dwelling and collapsed against the way as hard as she could. Anakin had flung himself around her and felt her entire being tense.

And Anakin remembers how her dress looked as if it had been ripped to shred by a sarlaac. Blood was smeared in between her legs, tears shining in her widened eyes.

_Mum? What happened?_

_Please, would you get me a flannel?_ his mother had responded, smiling calmly against the tears that betrayed her veneer. _I’m fine, Ani._

And Anakin did as she said.

For the next few days, Shmi did not eat more than a handful’s worth of food. And as Anakin reflects on this, he puts the pieces to a simple puzzle together. He remembers the pleasure slaves and his mother’s behavior. He remembers hearing her get sick in the middle of the night. How she said she was fine, her stomach just hurt a small bit.

He remembers how he walked in her once with her dress pulled up above her waist, looking down at her crooked hipbones with a mixture of sadness and devastation. Anakin knows she was probably considered too old to bear another child at that point anyway – at the time, he hadn’t understood why this wouldn’t deter someone from forced intercourse with his mother.

At the time, Anakin knew that most of the slaves in Mos Espa – at least that specific area – had begun to teach their offspring how to purge on command. At the time, masters poisoning each other’s slaves was becoming a more and more common method of revenge. Children were the most vulnerable to this, as they took the least amount of poison to kill or seriously injure – and to the other masters, it was a petty inconvenience, as they would either have to pay for medical help or pay for a new slave.

The other slave children could take advantage of that if they wanted to. Anakin could potentially take advantage of it too.

He knows very well that he can take the reins back. If he doesn’t belong to Watto, and he at least acts like he doesn’t belong to the Jedi, then maybe he can trick himself into thinking he has at least a little bit of control over his life.

Anakin knows how to trigger his gag reflex. He knows he’s eaten too much. He feels sick to his stomach. Greedy, like Watto who’s fat and ugly and cruel.

Disgusting.

Dirty.

He does his homework in silence, to the best of his ability, at the table. Everything is in Basic, which still looks a bit like squiggles he just barely understands. He doesn’t ask Obi-Wan for help, and soon enough, the man sets off to go do something for the Council.

Obi-Wan returns about an hour later, looking frazzled and tired as usual. He brings another round of soup and sandwiches – soup and a sandwich for Anakin, and then he pulls out his leftovers from the evening before.

Anakin only takes a few bites before he feels discomfort tugging in his chest. He looks at the container for the sandwich and reads the nutrition label the best that he can. One hundred and fifty calories, the same as yesterday. The same amount of servings.

He eats a fourth of the entire sandwich and then places the remaining half of that half of the sandwich back in the plastic container it came from. Obi-Wan and Anakin converse idly while Obi-Wan seems to be doing the same thing.

“Are you all right, Master?” Anakin suddenly finds himself asking. Obi-Wan has barely touched his food at all in the last few days. Briefly, Anakin wonders if Obi-Wan is feeling the same things he is.

Looking up slowly, Obi-Wan places his spoon down in his cup of soup and responds with a curt, “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m fine. I simply don’t have much of an appetite tonight.” And he leaves it at that, not adding anymore to the conversation while Anakin fills him in on his classes today, purposefully leaving out the teasing, the taunts, and the scolding from his instructor.

“I think I’m starting to get the hang of writing in Basic. And reading.”

Obi-Wan nods.

“I might be able to read more now – and maybe I’ll be the best in the classes when I can read fluently.”

His response is a small smile from Obi-Wan, who responds, “Maybe one day.” with another nod.

Anakin doesn’t eat any more of his supper, and neither does Obi-Wan.

They both place their leftovers in the icebox and spend the rest of the evening attempting to meditate.

* * *

 That night, Anakin dreams of his mother. She’s engulfed in flames as she screams, and he screams along with her – there’s absolutely nothing he can do.

Anakin wakes up in a cold sweat, his heart racing as he turns over to his side on his bed. He clutches the blanket in his grasp as small tears peek out of his eyes. Shmi isn’t here; he can’t check on her. She’s on Tatooine, without him to help. He can’t see her.

It’s all he wants to do. He wants to hug her and then she would make it all better, so he won’t worry and he won’t hurt inside. But he wonders what time it is on Tatooine – is she still up, doing both of their jobs, or has Watto sold her on and bought another slave?

Getting up from the bed, Anakin listens intently for any sign that Obi-Wan may still be awake, and hears none. Outside of his window, Coruscant is asleep. And as it seems, most of the Temple is as well. It would make sense for Obi-Wan to be asleep.

Anakin makes his way to the kitchen, rocking on his feet and grinding his front teeth against his bottom teeth. His stomach emits sharp hunger pangs that he wants to satisfy, but his thoughts still remain on his mother.

Is she getting enough to eat? Is she eating at all?

He feels his body trembling as he makes his way to the icebox and opens the door, where he sees his and Obi-Wan’s leftovers sitting next to the other on the shelf. He wants to take it. Maybe he can eat just the fourth of the sandwich he left and leave the rest for later.

Oh, how Anakin wishes he could give the rest of it to his mother. He wishes he was with her. He bites the inside of his mouth until it bleeds, staring at the containers intently. He doesn’t want to eat it but he’s _so hungry_.

One of these, Anakin knows he’s going to do something bad enough that Obi-Wan will take away his meals. In the eyes of the Council, he’s bad enough anyway with his age and his concern for his mother. Jedi are supposed to be compassionate; he doesn’t understand why he can’t express his love for her. She’s the most compassionate person he’s ever met.

It’s right as he reaches for the sandwich container that Anakin realizes he has tears running down his face. His thoughts run a mile a second as he tries to control the pain in his stomach and the pain in his chest and the tears running down his face in an attempt to not wake up Obi-Wan with the noise he’s making.

And one thing leads to another. The sandwich container is opened and Anakin now has three-fourths of a sandwich in his hands. It’s fear that he’s feeling, but also relief as he eats it as quickly as he can, before Obi-Wan can wake up and take it away. Before he can think about Shmi again. Before anything.

He finds himself nestled in the corner of the room, attempting his hardest to pacify his tears with a sandwich and a bowl of soup as the guilt pours out.

And just like that, the sandwich and the soup are gone and the only that remains is the shock and the sadness that Anakin was trying to stop, except now it’s joined with disgust. Disgust at himself and disgust towards what he’s just done.

He can’t stop now. He’s still hungry and the only thing he can think of is how disgusted Obi-Wan is going to be when he inevitably wakes up and finds Anakin like this. So Anakin doesn’t stop. He takes a hold of leftovers from the other day’s supper – the meat and veg – and eats those as well until his stomach is screaming, _shrieking_ at him to stop.

And all he can think of is the guilt.

_What did I do what did I do what did I do what did I do what did I do what did I –_

Obi-Wan is going to be mad, and the thoughts of that only make Anakin cry harder. He wonders if Shmi would be disgusted too. Probably – she and Anakin spent the last nearly ten years (and more in her case) barely able to eat and here he is devouring everything he can find. He’s greedy, he thinks, sinking his broken fingernails into his forehead until he can’t take the pain anymore. He’s just like Watto. Just like Gardulla the Hutt, who gorged herself every minute of the day.

Anakin remembers the pleasure-slaves and, heart hammering, bolts to the ‘fresher.

He forces his fingers down his throat until he triggers his gag reflex and forces everything back up, shaking, barely able to breathe. Gagging on his own vomit, he flinches when the light turns on and he hears Obi-Wan’s voice.

“Anakin!”

Anakin pays no attention, feeling himself gag again as more vomit comes back up.

“It’s all right, Anakin –”

Obi-Wan hasn’t noticed the disarray the kitchen is in, the plastic containers littering the floor. The still open icebox. Fear courses through Anakin as his stomach and his throat burn and he lowers his head. He takes several shallow breaths and feels Obi-Wan kneel down next to him, and the man’s hand on his shoulder.

For a moment, Anakin chokes on his own breath as he tries to breathe, coughs, and then takes a much deeper breath.

“I-I was – _h-hungry_!” he cries, gripping the edges of the toilet with his palms. “ _I’m so sorry!_ ”

Anakin wishes that was the last time.

The next morning, Anakin doesn’t have classes. There’s room outside of the Temple where a lot of Jedi choose to practice running, and that’s the first thing Anakin does in the morning. He makes his way down there after drinking a large amount of water to compensate. His heart races just thinking about last night.

He can’t believe how selfish he was. How greedy he was. And he feels _disgusting_.

Anakin doesn’t even know how long he runs for before he stumbles and has to stop. There’s younglings and other padawans and knights running around him too, but none of them as much as him.

He tries to catch his breath as he feels sweat pouring down his face. He has to have run a long time, because everyone else who started running around at the same time is stretching and taking a break while different Jedi practice running in intervals.

Master Billaba offers him water, which Anakin takes hesitantly. _She’s_ sharing her water, which Anakin remembers Obi-Wan saying is _kind_ , but _unnecessary_. He can’t help feeling anxiety rise up in his chest that he’s absolutely _sure_ she can feel.

And when he’s done running, Anakin realizes that he’s been running around two hours straight. His feet hurt and he’s sure he must be getting a blister or _something_ because the irritating feeling doesn’t go away when he slows down.

He’s hungry. He pulls on his braid and rocks on his feet as he debates between eating something and ignoring the hunger, just like he did on Tatooine.

When Anakin returns to his and Obi-Wan’s quarters, Obi-Wan is eating his soup, albeit slowly. They exchange greetings as Anakin leaves the room to change into something that isn’t slick with sweat.

It’s the first time he’s faced Obi-Wan since purging last night. Anakin’s throat still feels a bit raw, even after drinking tons of water. The reminder is not a welcome one.

But his stomach feels empty, something he usually associates with his own enslaved life. A full stomach had been one of a privilege, almost like a special treat. But there’s something different about it.

He can’t help but feel disgusted with both ways. Jedi are built of compassion and care, not greed and gluttony. Anakin doesn’t make eye contact with Obi-Wan, who lectured him briefly last night about overeating.

The next time Anakin is weighed by a Healer is the next week. The twi’lek takes one look at Anakin, then at the scale, and point blank asks Obi-Wan if Anakin has even been eating, to which Obi-Wan replies a positive. Then, the Healer asks Anakin if he’s been eating, to which she receives the same answer.

Sure, he’s eaten. It hasn’t been every meal, but he’s eaten. And he’s been greedy and eaten food that could have gone to someone else.

The Healer asks this because Anakin has lost four pounds in the last week, bringing his weight from fifty-eight pounds to fifty-four. Anakin has purged his food only once since binging in the middle of the night – the day before, when he had been overcome with another bout of severe emotion. Obi-Wan had left their quarters by that time.

And once again, part of Anakin wishes this was the last time.

The Healer lectures Obi-Wan to make sure Anakin is eating a caloric surplus. Just that term echoes in Anakin’s thoughts as he looks down at his own stomach. _Keep a balanced diet_ , the Healer says. _Make sure both of you eat_.

Of course Anakin has noticed Obi-Wan’s grief being expressed through his diminished appetite. Of course he’s noticed that Obi-Wan looks so much more tired than when Anakin first met him. He’s definitely lost weight. Anakin looks down at himself and then at Obi-Wan and feels guilty once again.

Anakin gets into a cycle. He restricts. He doesn’t want food. He can’t bring himself to eat, just like Obi-Wan. And then when he gets hungry enough, he becomes angry with himself and the lack of self-control that he knows he should have as a Jedi padawan. And to relieve that, he eats what he can get his hands on – which, admittedly, isn’t much but feels like a _ton_ of food – when Obi-Wan isn’t looking. And then he feels tears come to his eyes because it’s just like it was the last time; he feels disgusting and greedy. And then he purges when Obi-Wan isn’t there to catch him in the act.

And as the days go by, Anakin gets better and better at reading Basic and at mathematics and every other subject he studies. And as he gets better, he restricts more. Binges slightly less. Purges a lot more. Runs even more than that.

A month after he came to the Temple, Anakin has grown in height from four-foot six to four-foot seven. His weight has gone from fifty-four pounds to fifty-six, then to fifty-five, then up to sixty, and then down to fifty-one.

The Healers express concerns to Obi-Wan, who has started to make Anakin sit at the table until he finishes all three meals. It’s hypocritical in Anakin’s opinion, because Obi-Wan has lost at least a good twenty pounds by now.

But even Obi-Wan seems to be trying to force himself to eat. The two of them sit across from each other in a tension filled room every morning and every evening, as if daring the other to get up and walk away.

Anakin’s trousers no longer fit. They’re too baggy by the time he’s hit fifty-one pounds. His tunic is rather baggy as well, but he complains about neither of the two.

The ‘fresher sink is littered with hair one day when Anakin goes in. He recognizes the dishwater blond hair as his own and the ginger colored hair as Obi-Wan’s.  
Anakin's hair is falling out; not in clumps, but he knows it's falling out. It's gotten longer and longer - and wavier - and the longer it gets, the more that falls out. There's no bald spots, nothing receding, but his hair is thinner and much more brittle. His braid is slightly thinner. 

He pulls at his braid again and manages to pull out yet another strand of his hair that would inevitably join the rest.

He’s learning all sorts of things at the Temple. Like how to use a training saber, how to correctly read Basic, and how rude some of the other padawans are.  
Anakin still hears them call him a slave. He’s got no friends, with exception of a Togruta youngling, Ahsoka, whom he met one day while outside.

An older padawan makes up the nickname _Ana-rexia-kin._

The more his teachers and the other Jedi turn a blind eye to this, the more Anakin restricts because maybe if he’s not seen as greedy, they’ll like him more. He knows he can’t change their opinions, deep inside, but maybe he can at least convince them to be civil.

Obi-Wan, in frustration that Anakin suspects that he may be projecting, shouts at him in anger more than once to just eat his breakfast, lunch, and supper. So Anakin does, and the more he eats, the more he purges. 

Anakin collapses during the fourth week of the second month that he’s at the Temple.

He wakes up in the Halls of Healing with Obi-Wan in a chair next to him, a Healer by his other side, and the two speaking in serious tones. Anakin wakes with a tube in his nose and down his throat; an intravenous line finds its home in his veins. There’s scarring on his knuckles from the times he’s shoved his fingers down his throat; the skin was caught on his teeth.

They tell him he collapsed due to a combination of hypoglycemia and low potassium levels.

Anakin weighs in at forty-eight pounds, at four-foot seven, and he’s still not happy. When Obi-Wan describes Anakin's behavior, the Healer calls it anorexia binge-purge subtype, often times confused with bulimia nervosa. Anakin doesn't deny his behavior; he knows he’s underweight. He knows he’s stuck. Some Chosen One he is, he thinks. 

They discuss therapy. Programs specifically for Jedi that deal with eating disorders. There's inpatient clinics for padawans that include weight restoration, and outpatient clinics that include counseling - there's so much. The only program Anakin wants to join is one that can take him back to Tatooine, or one that can free his mother. He doesn’t want to be here. He doesn’t want help. He wants to go home.

Anakin doesn’t wait for them the Healer to finish speaking to him or his master. He looks away, tears threatening to spill from his eyes. Whether it's embarrassment or helplessness or just plain sadness, he isn't sure. He represses the urge to rip the tube right out of his nose and turns over to go to sleep.

Maybe in his sleep, he can finally feel like he’s done one thing correctly in his life.  


End file.
